Tag Archives: Emergency assistance

Are you interested in using MAACLink KC for your social service software?

You may have heard about MAACLink from other social service agencies in your community or maybe you are applying for a grant that requires you use MAACLink as your social service software. Either way, you may be wondering “How do I get online with MAACLink?”. The process is easy and here’s how.

The first step is to contact our office and let us know about your interest in joining MAACLink KC. We will start by asking some basic information about your agency; the services you provide, your annual budget, and how you would like to use MAACLink. With that information we should be able to provide you with a quote on what it might cost for you to get online with MAACLink KC. From there you can take the information to your staff and/or board to see if its a feasible option for your agency.

We are also available to do demos of the MAACLink social service software at no cost to your agency.

Once you decide you are ready to proceed we will ask you to complete the MAACLink KC packet. Once this packet is completed and returned we will contact you regarding set up and training for your users. We will ask each new user from your agency to fill out a Statement of Confidentiality and User Agreement. Once each new user has submitted their form and received training they will be given their own unique login information for MAACLink KC. With this information the user can then start to use MAACLink KC!

Since MAACLink KC is a website it can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection and the most recent version of Adobe Flash (a free download found at http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/).

United Way 2-1-1 is a free, confidential, 24-hour information and referral service giving you access to resources in your community. You can get information by dialing 2-1-1 or by searching the resource database below!

For people in need of services, from emergency shelter to a food pantry visit to utility or rent assistance, simply dialing 2-1-1 (like 9-1-1 for emergencies) from almost any phone (including cell phones!) in the Kansas City metropolitan area will connect you to a specialist at the United Way’s call center who will guide you to the nearest available resources. The same database the specialists use can also be searched by anyone through http://uwgkc.bowmansystems.com/ (be sure to use ZIP code filtering; the database includes resources as far away from Kansas City as St. Louis!).

The system also offers users (typically case workers or other agency staff or volunteers performing multiple searches on behalf of clients) the ability to create a profile, save resource groups for your most frequent referrals, view recent activity, and more. Start here to create a profile.

2-1-1 is a critical service in our community; big thanks to the United Way staff and leadership for all their work in making it even better with this release!

Some agencies using our social service software provide services to clients en masse without capturing all of the universal data elements, including name, social security number, date of birth, and much more, that would be required to create a client profile in MAACLink. These services could be meals (as in a soup kitchen), support group meetings, health screenings, or many other types of services.

MAACLink provides a way to track these services; it’s under the Home tab (orange arrow in the screenshot below) on the Indirect Services (yellow arrow) screen. This screen displays an agency’s most recent indirect services in reverse chronological order, and can be navigated with the pagination links at the bottom of the list (purple arrow).

To create an indirect service, first click the Add Services button (green arrow) at the bottom of the Indirect Services screen.

Indirect Services screenshot 1

Complete the setup screen with the date the service was provided, the provider agency, the fund the service was provided through, the type of service, the units provided (usually the number of clients served), and the value per unit, if desired (if a value is entered, MAACLink will calculate the total value of the indirect service. Value is an optional data field). Then click the Save button (pink arrow in the screenshot below).

Indirect Services screenshot 2

The new service will appear at the top of the list on the Indirect Services screen.

Services added under Indirect Services will show up on one report, the Service Summary report. Indirect services do not appear on other reports because they are not connected to client profiles.

Several MAACLink users have asked me recently how they can see more than the default 10 pages of client services on the client profile screen. Some of them were trying to document chronic homelessness, while another just wanted more background on the client to inform her case management.

“Services” can be added to a profile to document all types of social services, from shelter bed nights to food pantry visits to case management and more

The Client Services screen automatically displays a client’s most recent 500 services, 50 services per page, up to 10 pages. If a client has received more than 500 services, here’s a step-by-step process for accessing the entire service history:

Search for the client profile under the Client Case Manager tab (yellow arrow in the screenshot below), Search for a Client screen (gray arrow). Double-click the client profile you want from the search results

Click on the Client Services screen (pink arrow)

Search the service history by entering a start date (red arrow), end date (green arrow), and clicking the search button (purple arrow, bottom right corner). It is usually OK to enter a long search period, even up to four years or more

Click thumbnail to enlarge screenshot

This search will return more than 10 pages of results if the client has that many services; there may be 15, 20, or more pages. You can sort the search results by clicking the column headers (I recommend sorting by date). You can also export the services list to a spreadsheet using the green export icon at the bottom right corner of the list.